I Love Ice Cream Sandwich

It’s here! Android 4.0, code named Ice Cream Sandwich, was announced Tuesday night by Google and Samsung at a press gathering in Hong Kong. The first phone to run Android 4 is the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which will be available next month. But the good news is that the SDK is available right now at the Android Developer web site. Let’s take a look at the top features in the new operating system.

1. Ice Cream Sandwich has a more consistent look and feel than its predecessors. Designer Matias Duarte (former designer of WebOS) says that "While people like and need Android, they didn’t love Android". So he gave the user interface a complete makeover to make it "enchanting, easy, and powerful". New widgets, new gestures, context sensitive action bars, more discoverable commands - these are just the tip of the iceberg.

2. The Android 4.0 OS has new system font. It sports a new type face called "Roboto" which was designed especially for high resolution screens like the one found on the Galaxy Nexus.

Windows Marries Android, Thanks to BlueStacks

Thanks to the folks at BlueStacks, you can now run your favorite Android Apps on your Windows PC! The BlueStacks App Player, which is still in its alpha stage, lets you run several preloaded Android apps, install up to 26 others, and sync apps from an Android phone to your PC.

Installing the app might take a few attempts. But after it has been installed using it is a breeze. The app places an Android gadget in the upper right corner of your screen. Clicking on the gadget opens a menu from which you can launch any of the preloaded Android apps, including Bloomberg News, Bubble Buster, Words Free, and Drag Racing, along with six others.

The apps themselves launch in a full-screen virtualized version of the Android operating system, so they run smoothly. The only obstacle that you might encounter is that since the apps are designed for a touch screen device, running them on a desktop computer with keyboard and mouse would be a bit of a pain. Using a laptop with a multitouch pad would be a better option though. Overall, the integration with Windows via a simple desktop gadget proved to be clean and seamless.